WA Voters Say Child Care A Top Issue

In polling released late last week, 87% of Washington voters say childcare and early learning are important priorities. The polling shows 62% of Washington voters say that child care and early education is their top or a high priority when they go to vote.

The poll was sponsored by a coalition of Children’s Campaign Fund Action, MomsRising and OneAmerica Votes, who are supporting a new proposal that would establish a cap on how much of a family’s income can go towards child care, increasing state subsidies, create a living wage structure with benefits for early education and child care providers, and create new state training programs for child care providers to improve quality and safety.

I-2109 would slash funding for this and other improvements, worsening Washington’s child care crisis for working parents and their employers.

“Before becoming a mom, I had heard that child care was expensive and hard to find, but I was shocked that in my community it was nearly nonexistent,” said Capri Jackson, a mom and MomsRising member in Colville. “When I had my baby, I had to leave the workforce because of our state’s child care crisis. My employer lost a passionate and skilled employee. And without my income, my family can’t save as much money for our future or support our local small businesses as much as we did before.”

 Washington’s child care shortage costs Washington’s economy an estimated $3.5 billion a year in lost wages, productivity and consumer spending.

“Washington is facing a child care crisis – the cost of high-quality early learning and child care is simply too high and it’s too hard to find for many families.” said Lauren Hipp, national director for early learning and Washington state at MomsRising.

According to the Washington Department of Children, Youth and Families, it’s estimated more than 600,000 Washington kids who need care because all available parents are working currently aren’t getting state licensed child care. More data on Washington’s child care crisis is available in the handout here.